Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim Drake didn't know who he was.

Well, he supposed he was Tim Drake, but he couldn't remember who he used to be. He couldn't remember what his name once was, who his parents were, or even what his true age was, though he could guess that last one within a year or two. He was Timothy Jackson Drake, son of Janet Drake and Jack Drake, now. He knew better than to think they loved him, though. If they had any capacity to love anyone but themselves, their son wouldn't have died all those years ago, and he wouldn't have taken his place. The people who had sold him had gotten into an accident shortly after the Drakes had acquired him, so there wasn't anyone who could say that he wasn't their son. 

Tim didn't mind too much, though. This way, he wasn't starving or dead, and the Drakes didn't pay him much attention outside of whenever they decided to come home. And during those short visits, Tim knew exactly how to behave to get them to stop paying attention. 

Polite, disinterested, and distanced. They preferred to act like they were all coworkers who were updating each other on their progress. Tim had not understood at the beginning, when he had been somewhere between 5 and 8, but a few lessons had taught him well. They were his Mother and Father, not his mom and dad. He was better off thinking of them as employers than parents. They would tell him what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. If he did well, they left him alone and didn't pay him any attention. If he didn't do well, they would give him all the attention they thought he needed. He made sure to always do his best.

Somewhere between 6 and 9, he had figured out who Robin was, and naturally, Batman followed. He began following them out at night, watching the way they took down criminals and helped victims.

It was amazing. 

Robin was amazing. The boy cracked puns like Batman cracked bones, flitting between criminals with a lightness that didn't seem possible. He laughed loudly and in the faces of people bigger and meaner than him. Batman protected him, and they worked together like a well-oiled machine.

For the next birthday he celebrated, he asked for a camera.

His travels at night became more dangerous as he climbed higher or crawled lower for better and better pictures. Soon, the two vigilantes weren't the only thing he was capturing with his camera. They were still his main interest, though. They starred in the majority of the pictures he had taken, and he couldn't see that changing any time soon. 

Not far into his new hobby, Robin and Batman began arguing. It had confused him at first, seeing the two yelling and splitting off from each other more often. They screamed, would leave the other behind, and ignore each other unless the other was truly in danger. It eventually resulted in Robin disappearing from the scene. Tim was devastated when he realized Robin wasn't recovering from some injury and had simply stopped being Robin, but unless he felt like revealing that he had known their secret identities, there was nothing he could do to stop it. Dick Grayson moved to Bludhaven, and a new vigilante hit the streets there. Nightwing. Tim was glad to see that he was alright, even if he couldn't photograph him as often. 

It wasn't too long before there was another Robin on the scene. 

This one was taken to it like a fish in water. He wasn't as light as the first-landed heavier, hit the criminals much harder, but he was more sympathetic to the victims. He always had a kind word for them and seemed to know exactly what to say. He could be cruel to the criminals he came across, but the victims were grateful to the boy. Batman seemed almost cautious around the boy, as if he thought that the child would hurt himself or others.

It wasn't long before Batman relaxed, though. It wouldn't have been obvious to anyone who wasn't outright stalking the duo, but Batman and Robin started acting more like father and son. There were times when they would eat ice cream before finishing patrol, where Batman would grin and ruffle Robin's hair. Tim loved to see those moments most. Watching through his lens, seeing the two being affectionate, Tim could pretend he was beside them and enjoying the same warmth. 

It was great for two years or so.

Then Robin caught a rapist by himself, and Batman disapproved of the retaliation Jason had given. Tim didn't see anything wrong with reacting in such a way, but Batman had higher expectations for Robin. He began almost hovering around the boy. If he wasn't close by, he was always called back shortly. He began scolding and benching him. Robin would lash out, arguing with Batman and being even crueler to the criminals. It was a horrible cycle that seemed never-ending. Robin would do something Batman disapproved of, Batman would scold and punish him, and Robin would lash out again. He almost wanted to stop watching them, but the thought of quitting was almost worse than the thought of rebelling against the Drakes. They might not have known him, but he knew them, and he felt like they could have been a family.

He had been caught one day, shards of a broken vase from one of the Drakes' travels around his feet as they stepped through the door, and was locked in the basement on rations for a week. In that week, things went incredibly south while he hadn't been watching. 

For some reason, Jason had gone to Ethiopia, and Bruce had been just a little too slow in following him. Then, somehow, Jason died and Robin disappeared once more. 

Based on how Batman treated the Joker, the next time he broke out of Arkham, Tim figured that the Joker must have caused Jason's death. That wasn't very forgivable, in Tim's opinion, but he wasn't exactly involved in this situation. Batman could treat the Joker however he wanted. 

Tim was invested, however. He couldn't wait for Batman to figure out that it was also his son who had been killed. Tim knew parents and had seen the way parents in the streets would fight to protect their children by any means necessary. He had seen more than one prostitute kill a man because they tried to take what they wanted from the younger girls. Had watched men and women snarl and snap and fight with all they had to protect the children who had been hiding behind them. The fact that Batman hadn't ensured that the Joker was out of the way permanently unsettled something in Tim. If the man's morals were simply so strong that he couldn't get rid of the man who had gotten rid of his child, then Tim would have to step in. 

Tim knew he wasn't the most stable person, what with being sold like cattle and raised like a doll by two absent adults. He also understood that morals weren't something he truly cared about. What he had cared about was Robin, and the Joker had put an end to it. 

So, when the Drakes finally left for another excavation, Tim decided to get rid of the Joker. 

It wasn't too difficult when he thought about it. The Joker was only human after all. He could have been insane, and possibly was, but he was still flesh and bone like all of his victims were. All Tim had to do was find where his new hideout was, wait for him to finally be alone, and shoot him in the head. It was anticlimactic, and Tim almost wished he had come up with a more elaborate plan. That would have given the Joker exactly what he wanted, though. Attention. 

So he shot the man in the head with one of the many weapons lying around, thankful he did not have to get messy with the kitchen knife he had brought with him. In a way, Tim was glad the Joker was a killer, because lying around the base had been the saws needed to chop him up, and even canvas sacks which were already marred by questionable stains. He dragged the bags full of parts to the bicycle and the bike trailer he had used to travel there, and lugged the bags into the trailer. 

He was careful taking the bags home, and buried them near the property line farthest away from the Waynes. It was far enough away that by the time the gardener came to do routine maintenance of the estate, the grass had grown over the area the pieces had been buried in. He kept the skull, though. 

He knew it was a bad idea and that it wasn't smart to keep evidence of a crime, but the thought of being able to simply pick it up and see what happened to the man who had killed Robin pleased him. 

The Joker's disappearance didn't stop Batman from spiraling, though. Every night he was out, he saw Batman beating common criminals into the ground. As if they were the ones who had killed his son. It frustrated him to no end that the man couldn't stop himself from pinning the blame on everyone but himself. 

But Tim had crunched the numbers, and Gotham's crime levels had truly dropped in the time since Batman had debuted. Getting rid of Batman simply wasn't feasible, not unless he had someone who could take his place. Nightwing could theoretically do it, but Tim wasn't sure the man would survive losing two family members. Instead, he decided that getting Batman another Robin would have to work. 

Chapter Text

The first thing he tried was going to Dick Grayson in Bludhaven. 

He gathered his evidence of Batman going too far, and of what his victims were looking like, and hopped buses to Bludhaven. It took hours to get there, but he didn't trust a private driving service to deliver him without an increased risk of being kidnapped. He took his travel can of pepper spray, folding knife, and gas mask in the backpack along with the evidence. 

It took a few hours to locate his apartment, but once he found it, he knocked and hoped that Nightwing had not yet started his patrol for the night. He was lucky, because the man opened the door a minute later, a politely confused look on his face. He looked around, as if someone was going to introduce the child who had suddenly appeared in the hallway.

Tim, who had no human interaction outside of when the Drakes were home and the housekeeper (Mrs. Mac?), defaulted to his usual manner of talking.

"Hello Dick Grayson, my name is Timothy Drake, and I was wondering if I could talk to you, inside?" He held his hand out for a handshake, which Dick took with an amused smile. Grayson stepped aside, allowing Tim to come inside. While he set his stuff down, Grayson started talking. 

"Hey, you said you were Timothy Drake, right? You lived next door to me and Bruce. Is everything alright?" He sat down across from Tim, who had stared at him until he sat. 

"Everything is slowly falling apart, but hopefully you can make it better." Grayson frowned, but sat back, watching as Tim dug into his bag. "What happened? How do you expect me to be able to help?" Tim pulled the file full of victims out and set it on the coffee table between them. Grayson picked up the file, gasping and reacting to the pictures and information inside while Tim glanced around the living area they were in.

It wasn't exactly clean, but he wouldn't call it a pigsty. The Drakes would be furious at this level of mess. There were two different coffee mugs on the coffee table, both with dry rings of coffee lining the bottom. There was a jacket tossed over the back of the couch, and a stack of papers on the floor by the couch. He looked back up as the man set the file back on the table, a frown on his face.

"I don't understand why you didn't go to the police with this. I mean, I am a police officer, but this should have been taken to the station for a report," Grayson said. Tim nodded his head because that's what he usually would have done. The only reason he hadn't was the second file he had, which he then brought out.

"I would have, but I feel like it wouldn't have gone over well. In this file, I have evidence of the person who did it," Tim said, handing the second file over. He sat back and tried to think about what he was going to do next, but looked back as the file shook in Grayson's hands. The man was pale, his face drawn, and he had the overall look of a man who wanted to lie down in bed and never get back up again. Tim did not like that look on the man.

"I- kid, this is terrible, but I'm not sure why you're here in Bludhaven, asking for help with a case in Gotham." Grayson dragged a hand over his face and sighed, setting the second file down on the table. Tim scowled at the man, whose face had fallen back into its neutral hold. Surely he was not this stupid. 

"I know you're Nightwing. I know Bruce Wayne is Batman, and I know he needs a Robin. I came here to ask you to return to your old position and stop him from this downward spiral," Tim leaned forward, gathering the files set on the table. Grayson stared at him, disbelief obvious as he stuffed the files back into his backpack. 

"Tim, I can't just- how did you even come to that conclusion?" Tim rolled his eyes, setting the bag beside him once more as he turned to look at him. "I figured it out a few years ago, before Jason was killed. I needed a way to prevent Batman from becoming a Rogue, but I'll  leave if you can't do anything." He stood up, lifting the bag onto his shoulders and walking toward the door.

"Wait! It's dark outside, and this isn't exactly the safest area to be in," Grayson winced, as if realizing belatedly that Tim, coming from Gotham, probably wouldn't have much issue getting home. That made Tim smile at how protective Nightwing could be, even over someone he didn't know. He brightened it to a grin and turned to look at Grayson.

"It's fine! I had my nanny bring me here. She's waiting for me down the street. I didn't want her to know I was meeting you. Bye!" He didn't leave the man a chance to say anything else before he ran out the door and away from the apartments. He knew that if Nightwing truly wanted to, then he could've just chased him down. 

It was a little upsetting to find out that he didn't want to. Regardless, Tim made the long trek home and was in bed before the next school morning.

The second thing he did was try to confront the Wayne household by himself. 

He had to figure out how to do it without them knowing who he was. The letters he planned to send would probably upset them, and he planned to at least leave some proof of what Batman had been doing.  He wasn't sure what they would do if they had definitive evidence of what was going on. He wanted to ensure there was no chance of them guessing who he was. He instead made a face mask and a voice modulator. A plain black hoodie, black pants, and matching shoes, paired with the mask and modulator, ensured that they could probably assume his age, but not his gender or looks.  

He was only planning on leaving letters attached to the door and in the mailbox, but there was no reason to risk them seeing or hearing something that would give away who he was. He also didn't want to risk them seeing him and trying to talk to him. 

He wrote the letters with his nondominant hand, writing a little more off than when he wrote with his left hand.

The Drakes never liked the fact that he was left-handed and did their best to train it out of him.

The letters were tucked into the mailbox, taped to the front door, and at one point, Tim tucked one into the handle of the Batmobile.

A few months went by with almost no change, aside from Batman going slightly easier on criminals. It wasn't enough to stop some of them from being disabled for life, and the only reason Tim knew he was going easier on them was that he would hesitate, and then stop. The criminals, purse snatchers, and tire thieves would be limp, begging for mercy, and it was as if Batman would snap out of it. He'd flee from the scene as if someone else were being killed. He didn't think he would flee if he were the one being killed, which was a whole other can of worms. 

Still, though, it was clear that this was also not working. Batman might have lightened up on the beatings, but people were still getting hurt in ways they couldn't come back from. Tim was pretty sure there were still one or two in medical comas. If only he had left the Joker in a real coma, then Tim wouldn't have to do all of this nonsense.

His third choice was also his last choice. If this didn't work, Tim would be left with contacting Death Stroke, and he really, really didn't want to pay the man that much cash to kill the Rogues and Batman all in one go. That amount of money would be noticed, and he wasn't sure the Drakes would forgive something like that. They would probably try a more intense version of the reprogramming he had already been through. He's not sure that he would remember that he hadn't been Tim Drake, once upon a time. 

This third choice, however, felt almost worse than reprogramming, because he was willingly doing it.

He would have to blackmail Batman face-to-face. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Tim would have to do is prepare. Blackmailing the Batman was a ballsy move, and if things didn't go right, Tim figured he'd be hospitalized along with the rest of Batman's victims. At worst, Batman might have some way to erase Tim's memories. Tim has time-sensitive plans for that, but he would rather not have to relearn everything necessary to stop Batman a second time. At least he had written down what he had already tried. The best-case scenario, of course, was Batman giving in and finally finding a new Robin, even if it was temporary.  

It was sad, Tim supposed, that a fully grown, mentally unstable man needed an emotional support child, but whatever. If it would pull him out of this funk and possibly help a child on the streets, Tim was all for it. 

He would love it if a child were to be rescued from somewhere terrible and then given the love and support necessary for that child to thrive. Even if it was with a weird old man who dressed up like an animal to beat up other weirdos.

He needed to ensure that even if Bruce were to try and hold him captive, he could escape with relative ease. The easiest way for Bruce to hold him captive would be to simply refuse to let him out. Tim figured threatening bodily harm to himself wouldn't work because he had witnessed Batman knocking people unconscious with either gas or fists for such threats before. Poison? Bruce would probably be suspicious of a random child coming into his home. Time-released email, maybe. Bruce wouldn't even have to know unless he refused to release him. 

A disguise of some kind might work, or maybe going in as himself? That would be bold enough to catch his attention. A full-on confrontation. If he weren't such a stalker, he might have done so. As it was, he had witnessed Dick doing his best to yell Bruce into submission through the windows of the Manor. All it succeeded in doing was making Bruce sulk for a week and be a little less intense for that week alone. Then Dick picked up his roots once more, fleeing to that weird city he called home. Then Bruce Brooded and went back to his overreacting ways. 

No, the best way to do it would be to show the evidence in front of him, maybe have some kind of emotional reaction in front of him. He tended to become soft when it came to children, though he was kind to the mentally ill. It disappeared in the weeks and months after Jason had died. The Riddler and some of the other Rogues had, shockingly, decided to stay in Arkham after their first escape post-Robin. Playing up the traumatized kid disappointed in their hero might work. Bruce was very good at heaping unnecessary weight on his shoulders. It was why he had decided that he, alone, could save a hell-hole on earth, why dressing up like one of the rogues he beat into submission regularly. 

It was annoying having to manage not one, not two, but three adults. And that was before he had even begun working on the third one. 

He pulled the skull of the original third adult he decided to manage and grinned. At least he didn't have to get his hands bloody for this one. He just had to manipulate him. 

Chapter Text

Bruce hadn't expected to see anyone in the manor today aside from Alfred, and even that was sparingly. He had been giving Bruce something of a cold shoulder for not taking a break.

To properly grieve for Jason, Alfred had said. Bruce had stayed out all night after that, ensuring that the criminals had been stopped in their tracks and locations tagged to the GCPD. He hadn't stopped until the sun started rising, and he came home to a cold and silent Alfred. His coffees were decaf, his food slightly colder than it should be, though he couldn't taste if Alfred had altered the flavor. 

Everything tasted like ash these days. Alfred's actions almost made him furious, as if the man had simply forgotten Jason.

Even thinking the name sapped the energy out of him. A sharp lance of pain straight through his chest, leaching the anger into the gaping hole he recently unearthed. Being angry would not bring him back to Bruce. The anger would hit him tonight when he suited up and went out. For now, he decided to try to find the whiskey Alfred had hidden a week ago. So far, the search was a complete loss.

He was pulled out of this search by Alfred talking to him.

"Sir," Alfred had said coldly, "a young man is requesting to speak with you. He insists it is of the utmost importance." Before Bruce could tell him to turn the boy away, Alfred had turned and left the room. Likely to make some refreshments for whatever kid thought it was smart to request a meeting with a grieving failure of a man. Bruce pulled away from the cabinet he had been digging through and decided to try at least looking presentable.

He stepped into his room, ignoring the empty bottles Alfred had left as a pointed reminder of how much he had been drinking, and looked through his closet for a decent suit to wear to see this kid, and then decided that he had the right to not look perfect. It was only a child, after all, and it wasn't as if the kid would notice a few imperfections. 

He dressed quickly and walked over to his office, sitting down right before Alfred brought the kid in. Taking a look at the boy who stepped into his office made him go blue screen.

This was Timothy Drake, his neighbor. Timothy Drake, with a backpack and a sad face, teary eyes, and shaking hands. What had happened? Why was he so frightened? For just a moment, Bruce's mind flashed to those quiet times with Jason, where he would hesitantly whisper about an angry man and an ill mother. Surely not. Surely Janet and Jack Drake would never do such a thing.

Bruce had circled the desk and sat across from Timothy in the short time he had thought about it. The boy had hunched over his backpack, watery eyes staring at him. 

"Is everything alright? Has something happened, Timothy?" He leaned forward in his chair, trying to catch Timothy's eye, but he just leaned back and clutched his bag tighter, staring at Bruce. The longer Bruce watched him, the more he realized that behind the watery eyes and shaking hands was an almost blank face. What, exactly, was going on?

Right as he started analyzing the boy, Timothy decided to begin removing things from his bag. File after file, each unlabeled but packed to the brim. Bruce caught a glimpse of a picture, something dark, when Timothy started to speak, voice soft and wavering.

"I know who you are, Bruce Wayne, and you need to stop," He held up one of the unlabeled files, passing it over to Bruce to look within. The contents turned his blood to ice, his heart stuttering as he looked at picture after picture of him pulling his cowl back, smiling at Dick and Jason. Sometimes it was while they were eating ice cream, sometimes it was at the very end of patrol, the two getting into the Batmobile to go home. Bruce pushed past the yawning void and fire in his throat to look up at the child sitting across from him.

Tears were falling freely, disappointment strong in his body language, though his face was still rather blank aside from the tears. It was unsettling to see, as if a puppet were mimicking a person. Bruce looked down again at the file. 

"I can't just quit being Batman. Gotham needs me. If I'm not here, the chance of any of the rogues attacking Gotham rises extremely high," Bruce knew it was true, even if it felt like an excuse when he looked at the next file. It was full of what he could only call victims in hospital beds. Black eyes and broken noses and bones littered the photos, hospital bills accompanying faces he knows he had seen on the streets. One image showed a man intubated, clearly unable to breathe on his own. He set the file down on the desk in front of them and folded his shaking hands on his lap. That file was clear evidence of him needing to step back, step away from the suit and cowl for long enough for the anger to fade. He was becoming more and more like the rogues he faced. 

But even knowing that, he couldn't just step back.

That would only leave one possible person to fight against the rogues, and Bruce couldn't handle it if he lost another son. He would go as insane as the Joker if that were to happen. He looked away from his hands back to the boy, who, at some point, had stopped seeming disappointed and seemed more annoyed than anything. Bruce glanced back at the file, and turned back to see Timothy looking back at him, disappointment and upset obvious in his body language once more. What, exactly, was going on with him? 

Bruce opened his mouth to ask if he was being forced into this. If, for some reason, Dick had thought this was a better approach than for him to come at Bruce head-on once more, Alfred stepped into the room with tea and refreshments. 

"It seems as if this will be a rather long conversation, and I shall remind you, Master Bruce, that this is a child you are speaking to." The warning place almost felt worse than the cold shoulder he had been given. Bruce had never harmed any children! 

He pushed the memory of punching Dick away, rather forcefully. He had made his status as an adult rather clear that day. 

While he was rethinking what he wanted to say, Timothy opened his mouth, hesitance almost exaggerated on his face.

"I don't think you need to stop, Mr. Bruce. I think you need someone at your side to help you remember that even though Jason is gone, someone has to be here for the City of Gotham. If you lose yourself to the darkness of this city as well, who will protect the civilians?" Bruce's mind blanked when Timothy said his son's name, but it was quickly brought back by the question he asked. 

But it also made him suspicious. Why, exactly, had the boy shown up?

"Why did you bring this up now? Surely it would have been better to show me these things earlier. I had a much heavier hand a few months ago," Bruce said, leaning forward to watch the boy. Timothy blinked and paused, as if unsure where to lead with this. As if this interaction had gone off script. 

A few things clicked, then. The boy had been trying to manipulate him into either taking him on as a new Robin, of sorts, or to make him take a step back for a while. He looked back over at the files, taking a sip of the lukewarm tea Alfred had brought him.

If this kid thinks I'm going to allow another Robin, then-

"I've been watching you since I was a little kid." Whatever Bruce had been thinking before that slammed to a halt and jumped right off the tracks it had been going down.  What, he thought. So then he said it out loud. 

"I figured out who you were back when I was, like, nine. And then I followed you and Robin on the streets. You were wonderful, and Robin was... amazing. I loved seeing him crack jokes with the victims, and swinging through the sky as if he was made of air." Timothy's eyes were unfocused, as if he were truly reminiscing on such things. The amount of awe visible on his face clearly wasn't faked, and made it very clear that the act from earlier was just that, an act. The near worship in his eyes made him uncomfortable. And the fact that a nine-year-old child had been following unnoticed was something so embarrassing that he almost wanted to take it to the grave with him. 

"Robin was the light this city needed, even when Mr. Grayson decided to branch out. Having someone so cheerful out on the streets helped everyone. And when Jason was Robin? It only became better." What Bruce had called almost worship became fully formed worship. It was as if the boy had forgotten he was even talking to Bruce. Timothy lurched towards his bag, grin bright and manic as he pulled out yet another file. This one was packed to the brim with photos of himself as Batman and Robin. He only featured as a background character, and if it wasn't for the sudden oddity of the situation,  Bruce doubted he could even look at the photos without feeling like crying or drinking himself into a stupor. He reached out for the file, jolting as Timothy practically forced the file into his hands, eyes bright. 

The kid kept talking as Bruce leafed through the file. "When Jason was Robin, Robin shone brightest. The street kids felt safe, and the working ladies had someone who would look after them when he could. You might have thought he was too physical, which is so hypocritical by the way. You've been acting twice as brutally as Jason at his strongest. But he was Crime Alley's Robin." Bruce felt a little bad about it, but he kind of tuned Tim out at that point. He was simply so focused on these photos of Jason. They showed him flying through the night sky, and looked so sharp he could almost hear his son's laughter again. Even the absurdity of the situation couldn't stop the fire that lanced through his chest at the thought. He tuned back in to the boy babbling something about the first time he had met Jason as Robin. 

"When he pulled me back onto the roof ledge, it was like meeting a celebrity! Except I've met most celebrities living in Gotham, thanks to the charity events Mother and Father have taken me to, and they weren't nearly as kind," Bruce set the folder back into the waiting boy's hands, and watched as he put the file directly back into the bag and clutched it to his chest. The boy finally fell silent, as if realizing that he had been talking the whole time. His face went blank, his body fell still, and his hands clutched the bag as if he wanted to hide it away. Bruce decided to address what Timothy had originally come here for. He wasn't entirely sure how to address the fact that a small child had essentially been stalking him and his children for years, and had apparently at least once decided to risk his life for a photo. 

"And who would that be? Who could help me with this city?" He picked up his cup of tea, but set it back down. It had gotten cold while they talked. Timothy cocked his head, not unlike a bird, and hummed. 

"I'm not sure. Pick another kid up, maybe?" The phrasing had Bruce standing before he could even think through what the boy said, and Timothy raised his hands. 

"Kids get picked up off the street all the time! And with the way you've just been blindly attacking people recently, the traffickers have started plucking again." Hearing even more proof of his failures made him fall back into his seat, anger fading as quickly as it bloomed.

"I'm not going to just pick another kid up off the street. That would be cruel. I never even wanted a partner, and taking in a child to be a soldier is wrong. Any other suggestions?" If Bruce had not been staring him in the face, he wouldn't have caught the scoff. And now that the anger had left as quickly as it arrived, Bruce turned his thoughts back to the stories he had absently listened to while looking through the file on Jason. The kid was reckless and stealthy enough to avoid Batman himself. If he ended up injured or even dying while out on the street, the level of worship he displayed had him worried that Timothy might try to take it into his own hands to try and fight criminals. 

"Maybe if you actually apologized to Mr. Grayson, he would want to come back and help you?" Even Timothy, himself, seemed dubious of that working. Bruce smiled weakly, knowing better than to think that would be possible. 

"You and I both know that won't work. Dick has established himself well in the city he's currently in. I don't see him coming back instead of helping the people there." Timothy nodded in agreement. They sat there for a moment, Bruce observing Timothy, and Timothy deep in thought. Bruce knew there was only one way this night would end, and it seemed like Timothy had not yet reached that point. 

After all, the best way to make sure that Timothy was safe was to keep him at his side.